Crate digging: London Elektricity picks 5 top tracks

Hospital Records head returns to Xplicit

Returning for a guest set at Xplicit is the head of drum & bass label Hospital Records, London Elektricity (aka Tony Colman), who gives us a quirky rundown of some of his favourite tunes.

From the 1976 Big Terror Movie Themes album, Geoff Love & His Orchestra ‘Three Days of the Condor’ (Music For Pleasure) is an amazing piece of lounge dirty funk. I was Geoff Love’s roadie on his tour of Gibraltar in 1986. Along with the orchestra’s horn section I stayed in the army barracks. The toilets were in the middle of a courtyard and every time we got up to take a leak the real soldiers would throw rubbish on our heads cos we were soft music fairies. The second trumpet player disappeared after three days and they never found him. Totally true.

Depending on how I’m feeling, Bill Bruford ‘The Abingdon Chasp’ (Polydor) is either pure and utter wank or complete genius. Today I love it. It has chord changes that make me completely lose myself and that’s what music should do to you. As a teenager I went through a phase of buying any jazz rock/fusion records I could find in the second-hand record shop in Croydon I used to frequent. Most of them are unlistenable now due to being totally self indulgent but this tune has stood the test of time.

Macc ‘Be Like Water’ (Outsider) is a classic piece of 2006 drumfunk that has stood the test of time and, unusually for me, I can listen to it any number of times and I won’t tire of it. It’s perfect. I love drum edits and I love dark atmospheric drum & bass but for me to really love it, it has to sound effortless. ‘Be Like Water’ lives up to its concept. Macc is a live drummer and the breaks on this tune keep changing and warping but always sound alive. Genius.

Robert Wyatt ‘Grass’ (Domino) came out on a 7” and it’s a cover version of the poem by my favourite ever funny person, Ivor Cutler. It’s not about grass, it’s about sitting on the grass. I should point out that I am not a hippy, but I do love a hell of a lot of music associated with that culture.

The only current tune in my list is The Brookes Brothers ‘Snowman’ (Breakbeat Kaos) from Brockley’s finest export. I have to confess I missed it when the album came out. Since then, I can’t stop listening to it and it’s my favourite piece of contemporary D&B at the moment. Sublime, beautiful, hypnotic, uplifting, understated. What more could you want?